Catharine Ann Dorset, The Peacock 'At Home', published anonymously ("written by a lady"); for children; extremely popular; a sequel to William Roscoe's The Butterfly's Ball, also published this year[1]

1.
William Wordsworth
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William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworths magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published, before which it was known as the poem to Coleridge. Wordsworth was Britains Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850 and his sister, the poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth, to whom he was close all his life, was born the following year, and the two were baptised together. Wordsworths father was a representative of James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale and, through his connections. He was frequently away from home on business, so the young William and his siblings had little involvement with him and remained distant from him until his death in 1783. However, he did encourage William in his reading, and in particular set him to commit to memory large portions of verse, including works by Milton, Shakespeare, William was also allowed to use his fathers library. William also spent time at his mothers house in Penrith, Cumberland, where he was exposed to the moors, but did not get along with his grandparents or his uncle. His hostile interactions with them distressed him to the point of contemplating suicide, Wordsworth was taught both the Bible and the Spectator, but little else. It was at the school in Penrith that he met the Hutchinsons, including Mary, after the death of his mother, in 1778, Wordsworths father sent him to Hawkshead Grammar School in Lancashire and sent Dorothy to live with relatives in Yorkshire. She and William did not meet again for nine years. Wordsworth made his debut as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in The European Magazine and that same year he began attending St Johns College, Cambridge. He received his BA degree in 1791 and he returned to Hawkshead for the first two summers of his time at Cambridge, and often spent later holidays on walking tours, visiting places famous for the beauty of their landscape. In 1790 he went on a tour of Europe, during which he toured the Alps extensively, and visited nearby areas of France, Switzerland. In November 1791, Wordsworth visited Revolutionary France and became enchanted with the Republican movement and he fell in love with a French woman, Annette Vallon, who in 1792 gave birth to their daughter Caroline. Financial problems and Britains tense relations with France forced him to return to England alone the following year. The circumstances of his return and his subsequent behaviour raised doubts as to his wish to marry Annette. With the Peace of Amiens again allowing travel to France, in 1802 Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy visited Annette, the purpose of the visit was to prepare Annette for the fact of his forthcoming marriage to Mary Hutchinson

2.
Thomas Moore
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Thomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of The Minstrel Boy and The Last Rose of Summer. He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byrons memoirs after his death, in his lifetime he was often referred to as Anacreon Moore. From a relatively early age Moore showed an interest in music and he sometimes appeared in musical plays with his friends, such as The Poor Soldier by John OKeeffe, and at one point had ambitions to become an actor. Moore attended several Dublin schools including Samuel Whytes English Grammar School in Grafton Street where he learned the English accent with which he spoke for the rest of his life. In 1795 he graduated from Trinity College, which had recently allowed entry to Catholic students, Moore was initially a good student, but he later put less effort into his studies. This movement sought support from the French government to launch a revolution in Ireland, in 1798 a rebellion broke out followed by a French invasion, neither of which succeeded. Thomas Moore was born at 12 Aungier Street in Dublin, Ireland, over his fathers grocery shop, his father being from the Kerry Gaeltacht and his mother, Anastasia Codd, from Wexford. He had two sisters, Kate and Ellen. From a relatively early age Moore showed an interest in music and he sometimes appeared in musical plays with his friends, such as The Poor Soldier by John OKeeffe, and at one point had ambitions to become an actor. Moore attended several Dublin schools including Samuel Whytes English Grammar School in Grafton Street where he learned the English accent with which he spoke for the rest of his life. In 1795 he graduated from Trinity College, which had recently allowed entry to Catholic students, Moore was initially a good student, but he later put less effort into his studies. This movement sought support from the French government to launch a revolution in Ireland, in 1798 a rebellion broke out followed by a French invasion, neither of which succeeded. In 1799 he travelled to London to study law at Middle Temple and he was an impecunious student and had difficulties in paying the fees and his tailors bills. He was helped in this by his friends in the expatriate Irish community in London, including Barbara, widow of Arthur Chichester and she and her sister became his lifelong friends. However, it was as a poet, translator, balladeer and singer that he found fame, often simply called Moores Melodies, they were originally published between 1808 and 1834. But Moore was far more than a balladeer and he had major success as a society figure in London, meeting the Prince of Wales on several occasions and enjoying in particular the patronage of the Irish aristocrat Lord Moira. Moore stayed repeatedly at Moiras house at Donnington Park in Leicestershire where he enjoyed the extensive library and he also collaborated with Michael Kelly and Charles Edward Horn in staging operas to his librettos in 1801 and 1811. In 1803 he was appointed registrar to the Admiralty in Bermuda and he spent around three months on the island, but he found his work very light and uninspiring

3.
English poetry
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This article focuses on poetry written in English from the United Kingdom, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The article does not include poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, the earliest surviving English poetry, written in Anglo-Saxon, the direct predecessor of modern English, may have been composed as early as the 7th century. This is generally taken as marking the beginning of Anglo-Saxon poetry and it is possible to identify certain key moments, however. The Dream of the Rood was written before circa AD700, by and large, however, Anglo-Saxon poetry is categorised by the manuscripts in which it survives, rather than its date of composition. While the poetry that has survived is limited in volume, it is wide in breadth, beowulf is the only heroic epic to have survived in its entirety, but fragments of others such as Waldere and the Finnesburg Fragment show that it was not unique in its time. Other genres include much religious verse, from works to biblical paraphrase, elegies such as The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and The Ruin, and numerous proverbs, riddles. With one notable exception, Anglo-Saxon poetry depends on alliterative verse for its structure, with the Norman conquest of England, beginning in 1111 the Anglo-Saxon language rapidly diminished as a written literary language. The new aristocracy spoke predominantly Norman, and this became the language of courts, parliament. While Anglo-Norman or Latin was preferred for high culture, English literature by no means died out, other transitional works were preserved as popular entertainment, including a variety of romances and lyrics. With time, the English language regained prestige, and in 1362 it replaced French and Latin in Parliament, the reputation of Chaucers successors in the 15th century has suffered in comparison with him, though Lydgate and Skelton are widely studied. A group of Scottish writers arose who were believed to be influenced by Chaucer. The rise of Scottish poetry began with the writing of The Kingis Quair by James I of Scotland, the main poets of this Scottish group were Robert Henryson, William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas. The Renaissance was slow in coming to England, with the generally accepted start date being around 1509 and it is also generally accepted that the English Renaissance extended until the Restoration in 1660. However, a number of factors had prepared the way for the introduction of the new learning long before this start date. A number of medieval poets had, as noted, shown an interest in the ideas of Aristotle. The introduction of printing by Caxton in 1474 provided the means for the more rapid dissemination of new or recently rediscovered writers and thinkers. Caxton also printed the works of Chaucer and Gower and these books helped establish the idea of a poetic tradition that was linked to its European counterparts. In addition, the writings of English humanists like Thomas More and Thomas Elyot helped bring the ideas, the establishment of the Church of England in 1535 accelerated the process of questioning the Catholic world-view that had previously dominated intellectual and artistic life

4.
Sydney, Lady Morgan
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Sydney, Lady Morgan, was an Irish novelist, best known as the author of The Wild Irish Girl. Sydney Owenson was the daughter of Robert Owenson, alias MacOwen, Robert Owenson was an Irish Catholic and a professional actor, noted for his comedic performances. He had been raised in London, and while in England he met and married Jane Hill, in 1776 Owenson and his wife returned to Ireland for good. The couple settled in Dublin and Owenson earned a living by performing in theatres around Dublin, Drumcondrath, around 1778 the couple gave birth to Sydney, who was named after her paternal grandmother. The exact date of Sydneys birth remains unknown, one of Sydneys idiosyncrasies was that she was prone to be elusive about her actual age, Sydney spent the earliest years of her childhood at the Owensons home at 60 Dame Street in Dublin with her mother Jane and sister Olivia. Sydney was primarily educated by her mother, but she received tutoring from a young boy named Thomas Dermody. Her mother died in 1789, when Sydney was about ten years old, Sydney spent three years at a Huguenot academy at Clontarf and then attended a finishing school in Earl Street, Dublin. After completing school Sydney moved with her father to Sligo, in 1798 the Owenson family was experiencing some financial hardships and Sydney was forced to leave home in search of employment. She was hired as a governess by the Featherstones of Bracklyn Castle, in this environment she blossomed into an avid reader, a capable conversationalist, and an unabashed performer of songs and dances. It was at this period in her life that she began her writing career and she was one of the most vivid and hotly discussed literary figures of her generation. She began her career with a volume of poems. She collected Irish tunes, for which she composed the words, another novel, The Novice of St. Dominick, was also praised for its qualities of imagination and description. She was known in Catholic and Liberal circles by the name of her heroine Glorvina, patriotic Sketches and Metrical Fragments followed in 1807. She published The Missionary, An Indian Tale in 1811, revising it shortly before her death as Luxima, percy Bysshe Shelley admired The Missionary intensely and Owensons heroine is said to have influenced some of his own orientalist productions. In 1814 she produced her best novel, ODonnell and she was at her best in her descriptions of the poorer classes, of whom she had a thorough knowledge. Italy, a work to her France, was published in 1821 with appendices by her husband. The results of Italian historical studies were given in her Life, then she turned again to Irish manners and politics with a matter-of-fact book on Absenteeism, and a romantic novel with political overtones, The OBriens and the OFlahertys. From William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, Lady Morgan obtained a pension of £300, sir Thomas died in 1843, and Lady Morgan died on 14 April 1859 and was buried in Brompton Cemetery, London

5.
Lord Byron
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George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, FRS, commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet, peer, politician, and a leading figure in the Romantic movement. Among his best-known works are the narrative poems, Don Juan and Childe Harolds Pilgrimage. Byron is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential and he travelled extensively across Europe, especially in Italy, where he lived for seven years with the struggling poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Later in his life, Byron joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire. He died in 1824 at the age of 36 from a fever contracted while in Missolonghi, ethel Colburn Mayne states that George Gordon Byron was born on 22 January 1788 in a house on 24 Holles Street in London. However, Robert Charles Dallas in his Recollections states that Byron was born in Dover and he was the son of Captain John Mad Jack Byron and his second wife, the former Catherine Gordon, a descendant of Cardinal Beaton and heiress of the Gight estate in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Byrons father had seduced the married Marchioness of Carmarthen and, after she divorced her husband. His treatment of her was described as brutal and vicious, in order to claim his second wifes estate in Scotland, Byrons father took the additional surname Gordon, becoming John Byron Gordon, and he was occasionally styled John Byron Gordon of Gight. Byron himself used this surname for a time and was registered at school in Aberdeen as George Byron Gordon, at the age of 10, he inherited the English Barony of Byron of Rochdale, becoming Lord Byron, and eventually dropped the double surname. Byrons paternal grandparents were Vice-Admiral the Hon. John Foulweather Jack Byron, vice Admiral John Byron had circumnavigated the globe, and was the younger brother of the 5th Baron Byron, known as the Wicked Lord. He was christened, at St Marylebone Parish Church, George Gordon Byron after his maternal grandfather George Gordon of Gight, a descendant of James I of Scotland, Mad Jack Byron married his second wife for the same reason that he married his first, her fortune. In a move to avoid his creditors, Catherine accompanied her husband to France in 1786. He was born on 22 January in lodgings at Holles Street in London, Catherine moved back to Aberdeenshire in 1790, where Byron spent his childhood. His father soon joined them in their lodgings in Queen Street, Catherine regularly experienced mood swings and bouts of melancholy, which could be partly explained by her husbands continuing to borrow money from her. As a result, she fell even further into debt to support his demands and it was one of these importunate loans that allowed him to travel to Valenciennes, France, where he died in 1791. When Byrons great-uncle, the wicked Lord Byron, died on 21 May 1798, described as a woman without judgment or self-command, Catherine either spoiled and indulged her son or vexed him with her capricious stubbornness. Her drinking disgusted him, and he often mocked her for being short and corpulent and she once retaliated and, in a fit of temper, referred to him as a lame brat. Langley-Moore questions the Galt claim that she over-indulged in alcohol, upon the death of Byrons mother-in-law Judith Noel, the Hon

6.
George Crabbe
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George Crabbe was an English poet, surgeon, and clergyman. He is best known for his use of the realistic narrative form and his descriptions of middle and working-class life. In the 1770s, Crabbe began his career as a doctors apprentice, in 1780, he travelled to London to make a living as a poet. After encountering serious financial difficulty and being unable to have his work published, he wrote to the statesman, Burke was impressed enough by Crabbes poems to promise to help him in any way he could. The two became friends and Burke helped Crabbe greatly both in his literary career and in building a role within the church. Burke introduced Crabbe to the literary and artistic society of London, including Sir Joshua Reynolds and Samuel Johnson, Burke secured Crabbe the important position of Chaplain to the Duke of Rutland. Crabbe served as a clergyman in various capacities for the rest of his life, Lord Byron described him as natures sternest painter, yet the best. Crabbes poetry was predominantly in the form of heroic couplets, and has described as unsentimental in its depiction of provincial life. The modern critic Frank Whitehead wrote that Crabbe, in his tales in particular, is an important—indeed. Crabbes works include The Village, Poems, The Borough, Crabbe was born in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, the eldest child of George Crabbe Sr. George Jr. spent his first 25 years close to his birthplace. He showed an aptitude for books and learning at an early age and he was sent to school while still very young, and developed an interest in the stories and ballads that were popular among his neighbors. His father owned a few books, and used to read passages from John Milton and he also subscribed to a country magazine called Martins Philosophical Magazine, giving the poets corner section to George. His early reading included the works of William Shakespeare, Alexander Pope and he spent three years at Stowmarket before leaving school to find a physician to be apprenticed to, as medicine had been settled on as his future career. In 1768 he was apprenticed to a doctor at Wickhambrook. This doctor practiced medicine while also keeping a small farm, and George ended up doing more farm labour, in 1771 he changed masters and moved to Woodbridge, where he remained until 1775. While at Woodbridge he joined a club of young men who met at an inn for evening discussions. Through his contacts at Woodbridge he met his wife, Sarah Elmy. Crabbe called her Mira, later referring to her by name in some of his poems

7.
William Hazlitt
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William Hazlitt was an English writer, drama and literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and he is also acknowledged as the finest art critic of his age. Despite his high standing among historians of literature and art, his work is little read. The family of Hazlitts father were Irish Protestants who moved from the county of Antrim to Tipperary in the early 18th century, also named William Hazlitt, Hazlitts father attended the University of Glasgow, receiving a masters degree in 1760. Not entirely satisfied with his Presbyterian faith, he became a Unitarian minister in England, in 1764 he became pastor at Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, where in 1766 he married Grace Loftus, daughter of a recently deceased ironmonger. Of their many children, only three survived infancy, the first of these, John, was born in 1767 at Marshfield in Gloucestershire, where the Reverend William Hazlitt had accepted a new pastorate after his marriage. In 1770, the elder Hazlitt accepted yet another position and moved with his family to Maidstone, Kent, William, the youngest of the surviving Hazlitt children, was born in Mitre Lane, Maidstone, in 1778. In 1780, when he was two, his family began a lifestyle that was to last several years. His efforts to obtain a post did not meet with success, in 1786–87 the family returned to England and settled in Wem, in Shropshire. Hazlitt would remember little of his years in America, save the taste of barberries, Hazlitt was educated at home and at a local school. In 1793 his father sent him to a Unitarian seminary on what was then the outskirts of London, the schooling he received there, though relatively brief, approximately two years, made a deep and abiding impression on Hazlitt. The curriculum at Hackney was very broad, including a grounding in the Greek and Latin classics, mathematics, history, government, science, priestley, whom Hazlitt had read and who was also one of his teachers, was an impassioned commentator on political issues of the day. This, along with the turmoil in the wake of the French Revolution, sparked in Hazlitt and his classmates lively debates on these issues, changes were taking place within the young Hazlitt as well. While, out of respect for his father, Hazlitt never openly broke with his religion, he suffered a loss of faith, although Hazlitt rejected the Unitarian theology, his time at Hackney left him with much more than religious scepticism. He had read widely and formed habits of independent thought and respect for the truth that would remain with him for life. The belief of many Unitarian thinkers in the natural disinterestedness of the mind had also laid a foundation for the young Hazlitts own philosophical explorations along those lines. I cannot sit quietly down under the claims of barefaced power, in September 1794, he had met William Godwin, the reformist thinker whose recently published Political Justice had taken English intellectual circles by storm. Hazlitt was never to feel entirely in sympathy with Godwins philosophy, from this point onwards, Hazlitts goal was to become a philosopher

8.
James Hogg
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James Hogg was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots and English. As a young man he worked as a shepherd and farmhand and he was a friend of many of the great writers of his day, including Sir Walter Scott, of whom he later wrote an unauthorized biography. He is best known today for his novel The Private Memoirs and his other works include the long poem The Queens Wake, his collection of songs Jacobite Reliques, and his two novels The Three Perils of Man, and The Three Perils of Woman. James Hogg was born on a farm near Ettrick, Scotland in 1770 and was baptized there on 9 December. His father, Robert Hogg, was a tenant farmer while his mother, Margaret Laidlaws father, known as Will o Phawhope, was said to have been the last man in the Border country to speak with the fairies. James was the second eldest of four brothers, his siblings being William, David, Robert and David later emigrated to the United States, while James and William remained in Scotland for their entire lives. James attended a school for a few months before his education was stopped due to his fathers bankruptcy as a stock-farmer and sheep-dealer. Robert Hogg was then given the position of shepherd at Ettrickhouse farm by one of his neighbours, James worked as a farm servant throughout his childhood, tending cows, doing general farm work, and acting as a shepherds assistant. His early experiences of literature and story telling came from the Bible and his mothers, in 1784 he purchased a fiddle with money that he had saved, and taught himself how to play it. In 1785 he served a year working for a tenant farmer at Singlee, in 1786 he went to work for Mr. Laidlaw of Ellibank, staying with him for eighteen months. In 1788 he was given his first job as a shepherd by Laidlaws father and he stayed here for two years, learning to read while tending sheep, and being given newspapers and theological works by his employers wife. In 1790 he began ten years of service to James Laidlaw of Blackhouse in the Yarrow valley, Hogg later said that Laidlaw was more like a father to him than an employer. Seeing how hard he was working to improve himself, Laidlaw offered to help by making available for Hogg from his own library. Hogg also began composing songs to be sung by local girls and he became a lifelong friend of his masters son, William Laidlaw, himself a minor writer and later the amanuensis of Walter Scott. It was at time that Hogg, his eldest brother. Hogg first became familiar with the work of the recently deceased Robert Burns in 1797, during this period Hogg wrote plays and pastorals, and continued producing songs. His work as a sheep drover stimulated an interest in the Scottish Highlands, in 1800 he left Blackhouse to help take care of his parents at Ettrickhouse. His collection Scottish Pastorals was published early in 1801 to favourable reviews and his patriotic song Donald Macdonald also achieved popularity

9.
1813 in poetry
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nations poetry or literature. April 20 - Lord Byron and Thomas Moore visit Leigh Hunt in the Surrey Gaol, april 23 - Byron takes Hunt some books to help with his composition of Francesca da Rimini. August 25 - Theodor Körner composes the patriotic lyric Schwertlied the night before his death in action aged 21, autumn - Robert Southey becomes Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom after Walter Scotts refusal of the post. First award of the Chancellors Gold Medal for poetry at the University of Cambridge in England, kālidāsas 4th/5th century Sanskrit poem Meghadūta is first translated into English by Horace Hayman Wilson

10.
1816 in poetry
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nations poetry or literature. This pall of darkness inspires Byron to write his poem Darkness in July, regular conversation with Byron has an invigorating effect on Shelleys poetry. While on a tour the two take together, Shelley is inspired to write his Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. Shelley, in turn, influences Byrons poetry and this new influence shows itself in the third part of Childe Harolds Pilgrimage, which Byron is working on, as well as in Manfred, which he writes in the autumn of this year. In late August Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin return to England from Switzerland, Shelley is introduced to John Keats in Hampstead towards the end of the year by their mutual friend, Leigh Hunt, who is to transfer his enthusiasm from Keats to Shelley. Sheriden, written at the request of Douglas Kinnaird, spoken at Drury Lane Theatre by Mrs. T

11.
1798 in poetry
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nations poetry or literature. July 13 – William Wordsworths poem Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour,13 July 1798 written, William Wordsworth begins writing the first version of The Prelude, finishing it in two parts in 1799. This version describes the growth of his understanding up to age 17 and he would revise the poem more than once during his lifetime but not publish it. Months after his death in 1850 it was published for the first time, robert Anderson, Poems on Various Subjects William Lisle Bowles, St. Michaels Mount George Canning and J. H

12.
1812 in poetry
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nations poetry or literature. January 15 – Lord Byron takes his seat in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, summer – English painter J. M. W. He continues to quote from it until the last year he exhibits, the publication of these first two cantos is received with acclamation, and Byron wrote, I awoke one morning and found myself famous. The title comes from the term childe, a title for a young man who was a candidate for knighthood. The Curse of Minerva H. F. G. Lewis, Poems Eliza Macauley, Effusions of Fancy Thomas Love Peacock, The Genius of the Thames, Palmyra, the Works, in Verse and Prose, of the Late Robert Treat Paine, Jun. To which are prefixed, sketches of his life, character and writings, contains Philenia to Menander by Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton, Boston, Printed and published by J

Thomas Moore (28 May 1779 – 25 February 1852) was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best …

Image: Thomas Moore from NPG

The soldier and politician Lord Moira was a major early patron of Moore. For many years Moore hoped his connection with him would lead to public office but he was ultimately disappointed.

Lord Jeffrey whom Moore nearly fought in a duel in 1806 after a bad review of his work. The circumstances of the aborted duel led to public ridicule of Moore, although he later became friends with Jeffrey.